Alan Watts is one of my favorite writers. Today is his 100th birthday.

Born in Chislehurst, Kent, England, Watts was raised an Anglican, but became a Buddhist at age 15. In 1941, while Watts was living in New York City, his first wife Eleanor had a mystical vision of Jesus. Read more …

Alejandro Jodorowsky is known to English-speaking audiences as the director and star of the cult film El Topo (1970). His other films (of which there are only a few) are lesser known, and his work outside of film is hardly known at all in America. Read more …

I first published this piece in 2011. I am republishing it as a notification that this time next year, Counter-Currents will publish a symposium in honor of Alan Watts’ 100th birthday. Contact me at editor@counter-currents.com if you wish to write a paper.

D. H. Lawrence is best known to the general public as a writer of sexy books. In his own time, his treatment of sex made him notorious and caused him to run afoul of the authorities on a number of occasions. I have no desire to rehearse in detail the well-known history of Lawrence’s troubles with censorship, Read more …

Do we have “free will”? It certainly seems to me that I freely choose what I do in life, with respect to things both major and minor. My decision to go to graduate school, for example, certainly seems to have been one that I made freely, without anyone or anything coercing me. Read more …

Individuals who help us put a finger on the disturbing way in which the existence of the great majority of people has been, metaphysically speaking, degraded, are rare in our times and run the risk of being confused with charlatans.

In Introduction to Magic, Julius Evola recommends a spiritual exercise to be carried out just before going to sleep at night. It involves imagining that you are climbing up a mountain. As you progress further and further upwards, you are supposed to imagine the sun gradually rising. Read more …